


The Tell-Tale Bag

by Deuterosis



Category: World Trigger (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Accurate Depictions of Ableism, Gen, Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27500581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deuterosis/pseuds/Deuterosis
Summary: Yuka Kon has had it, took matters into her own hands, and....
Relationships: Betsuyaku Taichi & Kon Yuka
Kudos: 5
Collections: Banned Banned Together Bingo 2020, Banned Together Bingo 2020





	The Tell-Tale Bag

**Author's Note:**

> On reflection I went ahead and rated it G because I suppose there's no real age limit on Poe. (Haven't most of us looked at the books in our parents'/guardians' library, if any?) If you think this is a bad idea, or if you have anything at all you wish to say about my writings, please let me know.

I know what you want to believe, but please make no mistake: The implications of my presence in this place are not the truth, for a mind without its order and logic could not accomplish my acts. Even behind this window, in the midst of these white walls, you will find me to be sane.

Mad? _I_ , mad? No. ...Though even if I were, who could blame me?

The thousand injuries of that Betsuyaku Taichi, I had borne as best I could. Yet as the camel can only bear so much burden, so too does patience run to shreds when whipped across ignorance over hundreds of days, and thus did my back snap inevitably beneath his iron weight.

You, however, who know so well the nature of my soul, will not suppose that I gave utterance to a _threat_. On the contrary, I tried kindness. I offered that we two should attend a festival in the area, as respite from the grim realities which loom above us every day.

To his mild credit, he hesitated. Even this block of stone carried enough brains in the pit of his near-solid skull to find suspect my sudden offer that we leave for some event without the rest of our squad in tow.

But, unable to quell the childish joy of being graciously chaperoned by someone previously cold to him, he did at last leave with me.

See this as proof that in nature, he would be deemed unfit. It is not solely _my_ judgement at play here, oh no! 

If indeed mere base loathing had driven me, I certainly wouldn't have allowed him a final hour of happiness in this world. Nay, in this matter my offer was genuine. I gave him every sliver of time a bright-eyed fool might ask for to see himself around. We shared sweets from vendors of moderate expense. (That, you know.) I held for him his prize duck as, thus emboldened, he tried his fortunes at other booths. How do you think that venture fared? You can see the images without having witnessed them. I stood by politely and apologized on his behalf without end, as though I were his sister, beholden to his life and reputation by blood.

Even so, you will know that my resolve did falter. My mission was not one of vindictiveness or cruelty; no, so far from it. I knew the costs and weighed every benefit. I reconsidered my objective when, in his dull sweetness, he turned to me and gave to my silently festering form these words:

"Thanks for taking me here, Yuka! I'm sorry I almost said 'No'. You're not really _that_ scary. Here, I'll get you some cotton candy!"

Certainly I understood he usually means no real harm to the array of living and unliving things around him. But what does this matter? In his haste to gift me he tripped over his own feet and bowled over the cart of treats, which only served to reinforce the necessity of what I must do.

Then immediately departing the festival with him, bearing all assurances that I was far from angry, that I was long used to these disasters, I suggested we take a walk along the riverside. There's a view there with beauty unmatched in the low darkening blue of late dusk, an ethereal film glittering over the whole of the river, horizon to horizon. He agreed. And surely you too have witnessed it. In this, I did not lie.

Casually I suggested to him he briefly remove his helmet, and thus feel the cool dance of the breeze through his hair. Like friendly fingers, this breeze, winding through follicles to caress one's scalp. He did so, innocently exposing his black mop to the elements, and it was in this blissful state, eyes shut in tranquility, that he fell prey to me.

It's true: I didn't trouble with losing time or sleep to the fact I'd be depriving Suzunari-1 of a teammate. Our Squad could always acquire another Sniper. Any squad could do that. We had many other options.

Drowning him I had long discarded for the time it would take; better to be swift, remove him in an instant, before he understood his moments to be final. I had practiced the motion in my head and with armament many times, all week, to bring myself to this moment when I would rid the Earth and each dimension that connected to it of this Betsuyaku Taichi, where Nature and his very own uselessness failed to do the deed. One simple, forceful blow.

It was almost a mercy killing. For him. For us all.

Now this is the point. They call me _mad_. But to do this implies a distinct irrationality in my action, doesn't it? A capriciousness of brain. And I posit that the mad one is not I; no, it is everyone else, for not one of them doing as I had done sooner. Tolerating him for so long. I stepped behind him and rapped him on the head knowing I had just made the world a better place. He stayed none the wiser (as he could only be), died peacefully; what more could I be asked?

Of course I took steps to carefully dispose of the body. It wouldn't do, o irony, to be locked away for shooting from the air this misfired human ballistic missile. To throw him into the river would be to guarantee his remains should wash up at some point in time and location, and the killing be thus revealed. I did not trust the options either of carrying him away into wild woods, or to a different prefecture: The identification of unidentified remains is now quite refined. My ultimate choice I will confess is unorthodox, perhaps far more risky than these alternatives. Even then, my logic was sound. Who would search for a missing moron under the floorboards of the Suzunari Branch break room?

With my Trion body I bore him away, as though his limp form weighed nothing; draped over my back, helmet on his head, he appeared no more questionable baggage than a sleeping boy I was carrying home, all the way into our branch office. I encountered no other Border agents on my path, almost as if my act received blessing by the spirits around me.

That night, of course, I knew I would be alone with time sufficient to complete my work. The necessary accoutrements I found below my bed, exactly as I had placed them before leaving: A solid leaf garbage bag large enough to contain a Betsuyaku Taichi with space to spare, joined by a rope with which to secure it against exchange of gases and escape. In this bag, his body could not stink up the loft and cast suspicion.

I could pull up the floorboards in my chosen burial place easily; after all, I hadn't waited until this moment to remove their nails. What a fool I'd have to be, as bad as he, to plan that poorly! The workmanship of the floor, so naturally high-class, had forced me to work with great care just to loosen the studs enough for their clean removal. This task too took me nearly a week, completable only at times of the squad's total absence. With the work finished, I'd then replaced the nail heads with black dots so that no eyes could detect a thing amiss.

In the same state as I had found them the month prior, I thus left these floorboards; not even nails remained to dare betray me.

Yes, I slept well that night, even knowing what rested more heavily still than I, less than twenty-five meters from where I lay in dreamless sleep. The peace I felt in that knowledge cradled me as no peace had ever blessed me in the years since Border's founding.

Then the problems recurred.

As criminals often return to the scene of the crime, so too was I drawn studiously to the break room that morning, my nose tuned to check that no morticious scent had somehow emerged. Carefully I wandered, tracing a curve with no apparent relation to the location of the body, just in case someone should enter to question my motions. The floor gave no complaints.

Yet... I believed I could hear a sound of life.

I thought to myself, No, that couldn't be possible, could it? Of course not. Even if I'd failed with my first blow, the bag could not contain air enough to preserve his life from dusk to dawn. And even if _this_ good fortune had been upon the fool, if I'd somehow failed to tie off the bag sufficiently, he would yet have found a means to suffocate himself in the end. This was the sum of the reason why I knew I must kill him.

Before I could place my head against the planks and confirm the noise, I was joined in the room by Ko, who informed me immediately my act had already been noted:

"Kuruma says Taichi's missing."

I answered "How does he know? Is he Taichi's keeper?" knowing I must maintain my dismissive attitude; should I behave with concern and without more proof of an issue, that would be the surest sign I understood something of this alarming, sudden development.

Still. I heard the soft, plastic rustling. Not trees outside, not curtains nearby, not breezes, not high winds, not earthquakes, and not _nothing_. The sound seemed to emanate from right below our feet.

 _That's not possible,_ I thought, as though repeating it would make it more true when not thinking this could only make it less true. Perhaps that is the logic of a murderer, who began with certainty, so that of course her indelible act could only beget doubt.

I argued with Ko that our Sniper wandering off on his own devices for a night and a day did not lie outside the realm of possibility, though my reasoning grew weaker as in my ears and brain the shiver seemed only to grow more and more distinct. A ghastly reproach from a restless spirit, disturbed by my placement over the grave, and by his blood invisible upon my hands. Ever slowly did I grow more aware, too, of how I must look to Ko, my composure dented, unraveling moment by moment. It would take _him_ but fifteen minutes of rest to discover the most likely suspect in Taichi's complete vanishment. To understand the implications resting in the sharp divide between my words and constitution. And as I ran my mouth whilst my mind picked over what I could possibly do, I quickly heard it screaming:

"You can-not be this dense! You know it already, don't you? Don't toy with me! He's here! Exactly here! Under the floorboards!"

And Ko merely looked at me.

"Don't you hear the rustling of a bag?!"

I ignored the statue of his form and dived to the floor, my short fingernails failing to find purchase on the smoothly-flattened black heads. Since I'd secured the nails with utmost care, I soon resorted to the shortest available route: a fire ax on the far wall, designed for this very situation, or rather one like it.

Where I remembered pointing Taichi's feet I smashed away with the blade, splintering the beautiful laminate planks into uselessness without one thought, without one consideration, other than to give myself away and reveal the hidden body.

Despite myself, despite it all, despite my blazing conviction of a mere eight hours ago, I hoped with all my being to uncover him still alive.

But when finally I parted the floorboards enough to remove him, in that gaping hole I found nothing.

Certainly, there was a black plastic leaf bag, and there was a rope. But the body had long since vanished.

"What.... What?"

It didn't fully register that I had been subjected to a prank. Of course I know that I quite deserved the prank. Of course... Who can be allowed to escape free with attempted murder? I'm not trying to say I begrudged this little.

Ko stood expressionless as I raised my head to appeal, to fumblingly explain, when at that moment I heard a sound then more chilling than the rustle that had plagued my ears. Taichi's voice, a quiet low, the noises of a restless ghost.

When I dared to turn my head was when he all but fell upon me, a perfect impression of a ghoul,

And since I wasn't often surprised, and presented with spirits, and obviously not always having an ax near my hand....

Well, you know the rest.

So, you see, Kuruma... I know I tried to kill him; I know I tried to bury him below our meeting place; I well know what happened; but please, please tell them _I am not mad._


End file.
